“So, what’ll it be?”
“Uh, everything?”
I grinned. “Going whole hog Henry the VIII, huh?”
“The fat king with the zillion wives? Never understood the appeal.”
“Women are drawn to guys with power and riches.” I started dividing the leftovers onto plates according to required cooking times. “Looks don’t always factor into it.”
“Might have had something to do with the fact he could execute you and your family if you didn’t return his interest.”
“Or the fact that every woman thinks she can change a man, even a murdering psychopath.”
He gave me a look.
“I don’t mean you.”
“I’m a lot of things, but murdering psychopath isn’t one of them.” He paused a moment. “I’ve changed my opinion of you.”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising. Your opinion of me was wrong to start with. What I mean is a guy’s fundamental nature. If he doesn’t want to settle down or stay faithful or change his bottom-line understanding of how relationships work, then no woman is going to be able to overcome that. It would require … therapy. And the percentage of guys who are willing to do that kind of work is minuscule.”
“So what’s my fundamental nature?”
I was speaking in general terms. I hadn’t expected him to call me out.
“You’ve already told me that you don’t want a long-term relationship or marriage but that you do want a child. On the surface, those wants appear to be antithetical to each other. Most men who want children also want the security of a wife or partner to go with that.”
“But I don’t.”
“But maybe you did at one time? Want a wife?”
He thought on that for a moment, a strategy he used when he needed to reframe his thinking—or hide something. “A little woman back on the homestead, cooking up homemade meals, and keeping the house nice?”
“Deflection. The tool of the scared.”
“Not deflecting and certainly not scared. I like leaving my options open when it comes to women but choosing the woman who will be the mother of my kid is a different prospect. She needs to be a certain type—mature, responsible, ready for motherhood.”
“Ah. Which is generally not the personality type of the women you like to date. So you had a dilemma?—”
“And you presented me with the perfect solution. A woman that will make a rockin’ mom and who I trust as a co-parent.”
But not the kind of woman he wanted to keep the home fires burning.
“And you don’t see yourself with a wife?” Apparently, I really wanted to know.
“I’m pretty happy with my life now. The kid will change that because my kids will always come first, but I won’t have to spread my bandwidth over multiple competing interests.”
He had a lot of people in his life: three families across multiple generations and now a child on the way. Of course he wouldn’t have time for anyone else—now. I hadn’t missed how he pluralized “kid,” either. Ours wouldn’t be his last. He might think he had no time for relationships, but he would eventually fall. Men like him always did.
I shifted my attention to the artwork on the fridge. “Tilly did a great job of these shell whorls.”
“She’s a smart kid. But our kid will be smarter.”
I had wondered if her intellect might be “normalized” by the gene pool at my disposal, but I was starting to realize that Jason Isner was one of the smartest people I knew.
“That’s not really how it works. But we’ll adore her anyway.”
“Her? That’s what you think?”
